Apple Announced today that the upcoming Macworld will be its last. This move is due to the fact that Apple can now reach its customers in different ways independantly, without the need for expos or keynotes with other companies.

A severe ice storm prompted President Bush to declare Saturday that
a state of emergency exists in northern Massachusetts, a move that
authorizes the use of federal aid to help the recovery effort.

This week’s ice storm felled many trees in Boston and elsewhere across Massachusetts.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency
Management Agency are to coordinate relief efforts in the counties of
Berkshire, Bristol, Essex, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, Middlesex,
Suffolk and Worcester.

By Saturday night, there were 180,000
customers without power, said James Mannion, deputy public information
officer for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

That was quick: Google surprised web users today with releasing the first final versions of its web browser. “We have removed the beta label as our goals for stability and performance have been met but our work is far from done,” Sundar Pichai, Google vice president of product management, announced today. Among the improvements: More speed.

The Chrome web browser was updated to version 1.0.154.36 earlier today. According to Google, the software has matured enough since its initial release on September 1 to justify this move. The company says Chrome now starts up much faster and loads page much quicker: “Since the first beta, the V8 JavaScript engine runs 1.4 times faster on the SunSpider benchmark and 1.5 times faster on the V8 benchmark — and there is more speed to come,” Google said.

A series of Apple patent filings published this week reveal the Mac maker has spent a considerable amount of time outlining a new multi-dimensional interface for Mac OS X that would make better use of screen real estate by increasing the number of virtual surfaces capable of housing application and interface elements.